Durham ever ready for battery recycling

Fall collection held week of Nov. 12-16

Durham ever ready for battery recycling

Jason Liebregts / Metroland

WHITBY -- Regional works chairman Nester Pidwerbecki, front, was joined by officials and partners during the kick off of the Region's battery recycling program on November 5. The program will be held twice a year, one week after the clocks are changed. November 5, 2012

DURHAM -- Eventually, a battery will stop going and going, and will need to be replaced.

Starting next week, that dead battery can be recycled in Durham Region simply by putting it out with the blue box and green bins.

Durham is the first municipality in Ontario to offer curbside battery recycling, Regional works committee chairman and Oshawa Councillor Nester Pidwerbecki said during the official launch.

Batteries will be picked up during the week of Nov. 12 to 16. Special orange bags were being distributed this week, along with the Regional works department newsletter. Batteries should be placed in the bag and the bag put on top of the blue box so the collector can see it.

Coun. Pidwerbecki commented on how easy it is to recycle batteries.

"Simply fill the bag with old, unwanted batteries. It's that easy."

Battery recycling will only be done twice a year, in the spring and fall to coincide with daylight savings time changes.

Regional Chairman Roger Anderson said, "The Region of Durham has taken another step forward to 70-per cent waste diversion. Batteries don't make up a big volume of waste. But this will help keep heavy metals, like nickle and cadmium, out of the waste stream."

He noted currently only about five per cent of batteries are recycled.

Curbside pickup will make recycling them more convenient, he added.

About 86 per cent of a battery is recyclable, Coun. Pidwerbecki noted.

The zinc-manganese is used in fertilizer, while the steel casing is used in cars and appliances. Only the outer wrapping, a mix of paper and plastic, isn't recyclable and is shipped to a site in Buffalo for disposal.

Only single-use dry cell batteries can be recycled. Batteries that are leaking or the wet-cell variety, such as car batteries, can't be put out for recycling. Instead, they should be taken to a Regional waste transfer station to be recycled.

Mr. Anderson noted the incinerator now being built in Clarington "came with commitments and one commitment is to continue diverting materials."

Recycling more materials is important because the incinerator won't be big enough to handle future growth without more materials being diverted, he added.

Coun. Pidwerbecki added, "We're taking another step to increasing our diversion, which is already impressive at 53 per cent."

Lyle Clarke, the executive vice-president of Stewardship Ontario, said most people don't know that batteries can be recycled.

One of the barriers in recycling is convenience, he noted, so his organization set up 2,000 drop-off points around the province.

However, he added, "Nothing beats convenience like curbside recycling. It's a major leap forward."

Raw Materials Company will take the batteries to its facility in Port Colborne for processing.

Company president James Ewles said it's "86 per cent more efficient to recycle materials than it is to mine for virgin materials."

Mirka Januszkiewicz, the director of waste management for Durham, said apartments and condominiums aren't included in the program. People living in them could continue to take dead batteries to transfer stations, she added.